VC Cafe

OCTOBER 16, 2024

But substantial investments are also being deployed into emerging startups, particularly into vertical applications. Vertical Applications Taking Off. A large portion of the funding and innovation in voice AI is concentrated on applications for specific industry verticals. This includes OpenAI’s latest round of $6.6

Vertical 171

Vertical Generative AI B2C CTO Hire 171

VC Cafe

MARCH 1, 2024

Digital Wallets – Digital wallets could grow select vertical software platforms’ revenues to $27-$50bn in 2030. Verticalized Video Understanding – machine interpreted video. What’s missing is the last mile — distribution, customer journey design, guardrails and workflow automation. It’s time to build!

Artificial Inteligence 177

Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Software Review Generative AI 177

VC Cafe

JANUARY 27, 2021

As teams become increasingly distributed, video communication is important for both internal alignment and external business development. Vertically-focused startups design products to better meet the needs of particular user segments. Here’s his full list of Verticalization of Zoom ).

Vertical 148

Vertical Video Technical Review Europe 148

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

Lowering/increasing the cost of engineering personnel doesn’t affect this model (although the trend over the last two decades has been to dramatically lower the cost of developing a software product: open source libraries, Moore’s Law, Internet distribution/SaaS are three big drivers).

Lean 263

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 263

Version One Ventures

SEPTEMBER 19, 2012

A great product is always the foundation but a clear distribution strategy becomes essential to cut through the noise. With tens of thousands of new start-ups being created every year, the potential of a company to truly scale and become a large, stand-alone business is more crucial than ever before.

Churn Rate 168

Churn Rate Viral Acquisition Cofounder 168

ConversionXL

JUNE 20, 2019

But DailyMotion’s geographic distribution of users doesn’t mirror YouTube, especially within the United States. Of course, with Wisita, you must create the audience for your videos—there’s no inherent distribution network (unlike YouTube). DailyMotion reports 300 million active users; they watch more than 3.5 billion videos per month.

Hosting 127

Hosting Video Technical Review Software Review 127

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

Even startups that are dominated by technical risk have the customer validation risk of finding positive ROI distribution in a large market. Let’s not let startups use this as an escape hatch to avoid customer development. Almost all Web startups are dominated by market risk. ““What’s the “Market Type” of your startup?&#

Customer Development 228

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 228

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2018

When Sloan arrived at GM in 1920 he realized that the traditional centralized management structures organized by function (sales, manufacturing, distribution, and marketing) were a poor fit for managing GM’s diverse product lines. The next year, 1910, trouble hit.

Michigan 301

Michigan Cofounder Stock Forecast 301

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

One is explaining the world as it used to work: the importance of gatekeepers, the scarcity implied by limited distribution, and the resulting quality bar that the industry is so proud of. Mostly it is the time and expense required to create the means of distribution for that industry. It’s just taking some longer than others.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Feld Thoughts

DECEMBER 16, 2015

There are two common ways to scale a system – horizontally or vertically. Scale Vertically (or “scale up”): Add resources to a single node in a system, typically involving the addition of CPUs or memory to a single computer. You can scale vertically and horizontally at the same time.

South Africa 70

South Africa Vertical Los Angeles Minneapolis 70

ConversionXL

OCTOBER 25, 2018

Building a cache of user data in a CRM that’s strong enough to inform demand gen campaigns—what content to produce, where to distribute it—can take years, according to Brandt Bogdanovich of MST Solutions. Create and distribute content to those segments. Months or years of uncoordinated efforts erode data quality.

Demand 132

Demand Vertical Campaign Channel 132

abovethecrowd.com

APRIL 17, 2013

eBay recently launched an aggressive campaign attacking Amazon’s rate table on a vertical-by-vertical basis ( those percentages can be found here ). The distribution power of their pervasive platform proved a remarkable vehicle for many companies; particularly games companies. Let’s start with Facebook.

Europe 101

Europe Social Network Technical Review IPO 101

Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

Go spend some time outside the building talking to potential distribution partners. No, not really, but my partner owns the studio and tells me it’s spectacular and everyone will love it. Don’t bother him; he knows what he’s doing. Tell them how great it’s going to be and see how many pre-orders we can get.”

Silicon Valley 223

Silicon Valley RSS Video San Diego 223

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 2, 2020

Pixar was at the forefront of 3-D animation and storytelling but had no knowledge of the movie industry or distribution channels. By partnering, Pixar now had expert guidance and financial backing to distribute and sell their masterpieces. Focus on companies outside of your industry or vertical. Makes you more competitive.

Small Business 153

Small Business Reputation Partner Distribution 153

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Venture Capitalists on your board developed the expertise to get your firm public as soon as possible using whatever it took including hype, spin, expand, and grab market share because the sooner you got your billion dollar market cap, the sooner the VC firm could sell their shares and distribute their profits.

Silicon Valley 237

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 237

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 17, 2011

From left to right I wrote in boxes: talent discovery, content development, production, post-production, distribution, & marketing. Were they vertically integrated ? Underpinning it all I wrote: sales, asset management, analytics & talent management. If so, why? Did they dominate one or two areas?

Technical Review 356

Technical Review Framework Audience Media 356

VC Cafe

APRIL 29, 2020

The $349 billion aid package issued by the US Government and distributed in the form of SBA loans was quickly gobbled up by a large number of applications, many of which were from venture-backed or PE-backed startups. Source: NVCA , “Startup Ecosystem Faces Capital Crunch over Coming Months” USA – SBA Loans and PPP.

Israel 124

Israel SBA Technical Review Startup 124

Up and Running

JUNE 28, 2016

Key marketing tactics including pricing, messaging, and distribution, while others are about positioning your business against the background of the other offerings. You’ll also see positioning maps set up with two axes, vertical and horizontal. Competitive positioning. How do you stack up against the others?

Business Plan 109

Business Plan Technical Review Software Review Vertical 109

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 4, 2009

For example, Friendster was famously vertically partitioned at one time in its growth curve. I normally recommend you just store this directory on your master database, but you could use a standalone vertical shard (or even a key-based partition!) This is great for something like a huge DHT or a distributed work queue.

San Francisco 151

San Francisco Architecture Startup Database 151

VC Cafe

OCTOBER 22, 2024

This capability could revolutionise content production and distribution for media and entertainment companies. For example, our portfolio company Munch automatically creates short form, vertical clips for social media from any long form video and understands what’ s trending. billion in earn out based on performance.

Generative AI 78

Generative AI Technical Review Vertical Government 78

Growthink Blog

FEBRUARY 27, 2010

Lee Muhl, Managing Director, Growthink's New Media and Entertainment Practice Lee Muhl heads Growthink's entertainment-media vertical, encompassing the making and distribution of films, television programming, games, new media content and numerous related distribution platforms, technologies and methodologies including theatrical exhibition, DVD, PPV-VOD, (..)

Los Angeles 85

Los Angeles Silicon Valley Technical Review Distribution 85

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 20, 2014

I have been saying privately for years now that I believe online video will evolve into fragmented distribution (my next online video post) and vertical production. Nobody has figured this out better than AwesomenessTV who not only has built an enormous online media presence but also packages and distributes shows for Nickelodeon.

South America 291

South America Colombia Mexico Vertical 291

abovethecrowd.com

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

Another repeated mistake is attacking verticals where a satisfactory supplier “match” end’s the customer’s need to re-enter the market in search of an alternative. This second point negatively impacts many vertical service provider markets (such as pediatricians) where customers are actually prefer a monogamous relationship.

Aggregator 101

Aggregator Marketing Software Review North America 101

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 5, 2024

For example, our focus at Remagine Ventures on gaming, generative AI, and entertainment tech enabled us to create a relevant, focused network of founders, operators, co-investors and strategics who are active in our verticals. The focus on entertainment tech meant that we always cared about content creation, distribution and monetisation.

Management 104

Management Technical Review Venture Capital Generative AI 104

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2015

and concentrated on a single part of the supply chain – importing, distribution, wholesale, retail. These growing national companies were challenged to figure out how to organize an organization of increased complexity that resulted from their large size, and geographic scale as well as their horizontal and vertical integration.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Venture Capital United States Technical Review 120

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

Everyone should have a chance to walk the floor looking for deals, technology, distribution, customers, etc. Partnership Opportunities At any show you are attending there has to be tons of opportunity for business to business relationships you hadn’t thought about. These two posts were amazing. Anyways, here’s one question I have.

Silicon Valley 139

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 139

Ben's Blog

APRIL 28, 2010

Jobs not only killed all the commodity hardware and the horizontal strategy; he went radically vertical. Specifically, they wouldn’t give up their stranglehold on distribution and the value they placed on owning the recording. Hastings wasn’t married to the old distribution model precisely because he invented it.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 78

ConversionXL

OCTOBER 14, 2021

For example, you could deploy CSAT surveys at various parts of the buyer’s journey (distributed across leads so as not to bombard a single customer with multiple questions). This partnership would leverage both audiences and the rapidly growing awareness of the vertical. Brand consideration.

Metrics 157

Metrics Marketing Campaign Audience 157

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

You can be an Independent studio or do “work for hire&# (either a revenue share or buy-out model) - If you’re an independent studio you have a set of choices for distribution channel and marketing models. - We understood none of this. More detail in future posts. steve Twitted by altgate , on July 2, 2009 at 5:22 pm Said: [.]

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 4, 2021

Anthony Ulwick and Ted Thayer of Strategyn have a set of unique and valuable insights: Rather than defining markets as existing, adjacent or new markets – or by verticals, technology, demographics, et al. Others define markets around verticals, e.g. the financial services market or the healthcare market.

Customer 427

Customer Marketing Lean Vertical 427

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

In the last three posts, we drew the relationship of market risk and invention risk with vertical markets and pointed out verticals where customer development would be useful. would look in each of the verticals. For example, How does sales differ from one market to another? Others you need to know when you execute the plan.

Vertical 126

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 126

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 23, 2011

Yes an online video startup in ‘99 that helped large media companies encode and distribute their videos through portals. He is starting to see this occur in sites that are verticalizing content. It has become a short form premium destination that is verticalizing content in category channels. Startup after Iron Planet? (6:00

Vertical 265

Vertical Curation Boston Burn Rate 265

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

My two cents is that a business plan is the single place to collect your thinking about about your: business model, distribution channel, demand creation plan, financial assumptions, and customer and product development plan. I now think that was a mistake. I was simply confused about what a plan was for.

Business Plan 160

Business Plan Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital 160

Duct Tape Marketing

JANUARY 25, 2023

And I think you're right, you touched on the advent of technology surrounding publishing, as well as all the different things you can do now as a self-published author, as it relates to, you know, distribution channels. And again, for a lot of people, that's what they were concerned with was distribution.

Audience 98

Audience Revenue Distribution Differentiation 98

ConversionXL

OCTOBER 4, 2022

Identify key characteristics that delineate one audience segment from another, then create and distribute appropriate content. the product pages a given customer has been browsing) to segment and distribute content accordingly. Take Burrow , an ecommerce business specializing in home furniture. They use intent signals (e.g.,

eCommerce 129

eCommerce Marketing Social Media Retention 129

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 18, 2011

mile manufacturing complex, with 100,000 workers – vertically integrated and optimized mass production. Here’s what he did: Distributed Accounting Unlike Ford, GM was originally a collection of separate companies. Ford tried to escape the never-ending technology feature wars by becoming the low cost manufacturer.

Detroit 312

Detroit Distribution Vertical Finance 312

ConversionXL

MAY 22, 2017

After that, the adoption of the cloud as a more scalable and cost-effective approach allowed small/medium business to build CRMs around very specific market needs and establish dominance in new vertical segments. Mark Organ , saw a tiny space in the already very crowded CRM industry and founded Eloqua. Eloqua was the proof of that.

Customer 92

Customer Marketing Artificial Inteligence Clickthrough 92